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"better late than never" must characterize part of the urgency for this legislation.

If any new voice is needed to say that the five excellent universities now matriculating students in the area are not enough, we would refer to the Mapes report reiterating the "national mission of these schools" as over against an immediate need for a school oriented to the local community. And the obvious cost factor of these schools in relation to the obvious economic factor of so many District of Columbia. citizens should help overcome any defensiveness in this area.

In this respect it is not fair to put the burden of borrowing and being high in scholarship competition to gain an education in the highly competitive private institutions when high school graduates of every other jurisdiction have the advantage of public-supported schools where admission is gained on less competitive and economic standards. We cannot allow the same old trap to be snapped shut again that from whom much is denied more is expected.

As churchmen, we have to apologize for the past record of our own institutions of higher learning, which were oriented to the church and providing only its own needs. Today this narrowness of parochial and limited education, tailored for self-preservation of one's own institution and not universal in its community concept is recogized as archaic and only to be tolerated until change toward a broader concept takes place.

Once again, then, the Congress of the United States has the opportunity to raise our sights by looking toward this more universal community and showing the vision of what it means for young persons to enter the stream of higher education to discover the world in ever widening circles of knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. We do not want our youth to believe that the whole world is what they see happening in their Washington, D.C., surroundings; and here we speak of slums, inadequate secondary schools, "huddled masses yearning to be free." There is a world out there and we want our less chance youth to have the chance to know it, to taste it, to live it; to realize that life may after all be worth living for them, too. To paraphrase a freedom song, "Let's ask the lady known as the Statue of Liberty to turn around now and again to shine her torch of freedom and enlightenment down our way.'

To bring that vision to fruition now means hope and usefulness for people now. To leave it for another Congress means one more delaying tactic to frustrate the healthy ambitions of young people too long faced with educational barriers that have mean jobs limited to janitors, dishwashers, table waiters, doormen, and streetsweepers. Honest jobs in themselves but few within them would ask you to stop thinking about higher educational opportunities to assure that their children would be forced to inherit their jobs. It is for the healthy ambitions of thousands of less chance parents and young people that we speak and would hope that this committee might go directly to these persons that they would have the opportunity to speak for themselves.

We also feel it should be said that many of us who have observed the relationship of Congress and the citizens of Washington, D.C., as Congress assumes it role of final authority over District affairs, that like so much of the operation, the education situation has been limited

in direct proportion to the Negro persons involved in the educational system. We are testifying here today in part because we feel that if bigotry and racism play a part in the mentality of those legislators responsible for affairs here, then that narrowness of decisionmaking should be recognized, brought to the surface and seen in the light of public opinion. If racial prejudice would be a factor in determining the outcome of this legislation for higher education, then we would hope that the Congress would know from this committee that such determining factors can no longer carry the day.

We should do whatever we can here and now to let Negro citizens of Washington, D.C., know that the hope level for Negro citizens is rising and that such outlets as reenlistment in the Armed Forces at 22 times the reenlistment rate for white citizens is no longer necessary to escape from an uncaring civilian community.

We realize the need and believe in the art of politics, this need to let some urgent matter lie dormant while another's program is fulfilled. We know something about the art of the possible and that all worthy programs cannot be legislated in one session of Congress but hold out the conviction that this Congress will appreciate your committee's attempts to make this a matter of highest priority.

We can only add our verbal support and hopefully our future tax dollars for a public institution of higher education brought into being by your legislative efforts.

We thank you for this opportunity to testify.

Senator MORSE. Mr. Dorworth, I want to say to you that I think this is a very eloquent statement and it is a very fitting companion statement to the testimony and report that was submitted to us by Reverend Stuart McKenzie and by Mr. Mapes. I think these three statements set forth most effectively the position of the church groups in the District and I want to commend each of you for them. I find myself in agreement with the appeal that your statements make. Thank you very much.

Mr. DORWORTH. Thank you.

Senator MORSE. Mr. Merle D. Baumgart, Education Committee, Capitol Hill Community Council, Inc.

Thank you very much for coming.

STATEMENT OF MERLE D. BAUMGART, EDUCATION COMMITTEE, CAPITOL HILL COMMUNITY COUNCIL, INC.

Mr. BAUMGART. Thank you. I am very happy to be here today, Senator Morse. I would like to summarize my statement and make a few extraneous remarks.

Senator MORSE. Your full statement will go in the record and you may summarize.

Mr. BAUMGART. Thank you.

The Capitol Hill Community Council wholeheartedly supports all recommendations put forth by the President's Committee on Higher

Education. That was the very clear mandate overwhelmingly supported by the Capitol Hill Community Council. We believe, however, that the method of selecting the Board of Higher Education by the Judges of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has failed in its application with the public school system in the District of Columbia and that it therefore represents an inferior method to that proposed by S. 1612; that is, appointment by way of a citizens nominating committee. Perhaps in the end an elected board would be the best method of all.

Now the Teachers College, as has been repeated over and over again at these hearings, represents the last hope for any kind of higher education to approximately 1,500 District residents annually, and when we speak in terms of the actual human needs that are at stake we find it incongruous in the extreme to see Congress so horrified over the District's rising crime rate, and yet so uninclined, over the years, to offer the same higher education opportunities that the great majority of other Americans matter of factly enjoy.

Now when I am not testifying for public higher education in the District I spend my time at the District of Columbia Teachers College as an instructor in history. Just about a week ago during the first 2 days of testimony I decided to take a poll of my students, and I asked them one very simple question: If you had the opportunity to graduate from the institution with any other degree besides the teachers degree, would you be so inclined? The response was some 46 percent said they would be so inclined and these are students who are freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors-in fact, all my seniors said they were so inclined.

Now if we find approximately half of our present students at the Teachers College with that inclination, I think it is fairly obvious that in the District of Columbia as a whole we will find a major response and an immediate response to a public 4-year liberal arts college.

Senator MORSE. I think that is very dramatic testimony to be put in this hearing record at this time. It bears out a hunch of mine. I have had no objective data on which to base my hunch but I just felt if we take a look at the situation here in the District of Columbia, we have no other choice than the one we are giving them. We have limited their opportunities. What you have said to them in effect is, "If we gave you a broader opportunity, how many of you would take the broader opportunity?" That means you thereby separated out those that really want to prepare for the teaching profession and those that said they would take another course or those that said they would take something else if they could select it. I think it is rather persuasive testimony as far as I am concerned.

Mr. BAUMGART. Thank you, sir. I have long felt that the real issue involved is the denial of equal opportunity. We find this, of course, in such areas as the home rule area of citizenship, but it is not only citizenship, it extends to many other areas of life in the District of Columbia, and education, of course, is a prime example.

May I say one other comment concerning the nature of the Teachers College. As you know, the Wilson and Minor Colleges, Negro and white, were amalgamated in 1955 and they became the District of Columbia Teachers College; it was new, in fact, only in name. There are separate buildings, and even though it has become desegregated

during these last 11 years now I do not believe personally that it will become a completely integrated institution until we have centralized facilities, for now we still have the bastions of the past, the Wilson building and the Minor building, and these are still very old-not really stately but at least permanent symbols of previous segregation. The faculty in the school of the Teachers College cannot be completely integrated, I believe, until we have a centralized institution.

With that, sir, I would like to close. I think you very much. Senator MORSE. The full statement of Mr. Baumgart will go in the record at the very close of your testimony because I want the printed statement in the record without change.

Thank you very much.

Mr. BAUMGART. Thank you.

(The statement referred to follows:)

STATEMENT OF MERLE D. BAUMGART, EDUCATION COMMITTEE, CAPITOL HILL COMMUNITY COUNCIL

My name is Merle D. Baumgart and I am here today representing the Capitol Hill Council, an integrated civic organization composed of approximately 500 Capitol Hill residents. We wholeheartedly support the recommendations put forth in the report of the President's Committee on Public Higher Education in the District of Columbia. We think that the President's committee report is by far the most accurate, detailed, objective, and yet also the most comprehensive study of higher education needs ever undertaken in Washington, D.C. It is a model of lucidity and candor, and we think that it ought to be adopted by the District of Columbia government and the Congress as the official blueprint for immediate action concerning higher education in the District. Specifically, we support "the immediate creation of a comprehensive community college, publicly supported ***"; "the immediate creation of a college of liberal arts and sciences, also publicly supported * * *"; and "the prompt establishment of a system of noncompetitive scholarships, publicly supported, to enable qualified District students, who wish, after 2 years' work in the Community College, to pursue special courses of study not offered at the outset by the proposed public college of liberal arts and sciences ***."

Toward these goals we support S. 1612 and/or S. 293, although concerning S. 293 we believe that the method of selecting the Board of Higher Education by the judges of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has failed in the past, and is an inferior method to that proposed by S. 1612; i.e., appointment by way of a citizens nominating committee and the District of Columbia Commissioners. Perhaps an elected Board of Public Higher Education would be the best method of all.

Mr. Chairman, it painfully has become evident over the years that the District Teachers College does not enjoy the confidence or the support of a majority of District citizens, nor especially of the U.S. Congress. Due to congressional parsimony, District government timidity, and public school administration ineptitude, it has been dying on the vine for years. All the same the Teachers College represents the last hope for any kind of higher education to approximately 1,500 District residents annually, and when we speak in terms of the actual human needs that are at stake we find it incongruous in the extreme to see Congress so horrified over the District's rising crime rate, and yet so uninclined, over the years, to offer the same higher education opportunities that the great majority of other Americans matter of factly enjoy.

Let us look at the record. As far back as 1948 it was recognized generally that the then two segregated teachers colleges had fallen behind national averages in higher education. Accordingly, the House District Committee appropriated $100,000 for a study that resulted in the George D. Strayer report, which recommended an expenditure of $10 million for two new teachers colleges. Nothing happened. By 1955 Miner Teachers College and Wilson Teachers College were integrated and amalgamated into the District of Columbia Teachers College. It was new only in name and racial composition since the outmoded physical plants

were taken over, as was the outmoded and narrow concept of a 4-year normal school leading to only one possible degree, a B.S. certificate in teacher education. That was 11 years ago.

Mr. Chairman, in 1958 the Board of Education sponsored a report that strongly advised the building of a new physical plant. Nothing happened.

In 1959 the management consultant firm of Booz, Allen, & Hamilton was engaged by the Board of Education to study public higher education needs of District residents. They advocated the immediate establishment of a junior college, and the U.S. Senate followed through by passing the first of three junior college bills that it has approved between then and now. As we all know the House District Committee has sat on all public higher education bills the same way that they have sat on the District of Columbia home rule bills, and consequently we still do not enjoy the existence of a junior college, let alone a 4-year liberal arts college.

In 1962 the District of Columbia public school officials addressed a questionnaire to all graduating seniors in an effort to gage prospective interest in a public junior college. No less than 55 percent (1,782 students) registered their interest.

Since then the President's Committee has reported that besides the 1,782 interested students, an additional 720 seniors who did not plan to go to college would change their minds if a public junior college existed. Moreover, the committee found that "at least 600" college able graduating seniors "who can afford to continue school only in a publicly supported institution" would be attracted to the 4-year liberal arts college yearly. The present freshman classes at the Teachers College average from 150 to 250 students yearly.

Consequently, Mr. Chairman, there is a clear and immediate need for all the recommendations of the President's Committee report to be quickly acted upon, and toward that end the Capital Hill Community Council pledges its support to the earliest possible establishment of a public junior college, and a 4-year liberal arts college.

Thank you.

Senator MORSE. Now as the chairman brings this public hearing to a close it will be understood that the hearing record will be left open until 5 p.m. next Tuesday, March 29, 1966. In closing the hearing the chairman wants the record to show his thanks to every witness that has appeared before us, his thanks to those who have filed statements, and his thanks to those who will file statements between now and the final disposal of the bill by this subcommittee.

I desire to have Mr. Smith and Mr. Judd to arrange to have executive sessions of this committee for the markup on this bill at the earliest possible date consonant with the convenience of the members of the subcommittee. I am very anxious to get this bill reported to the full committee so that we can have prompt action there in order to get it to the floor of the Senate at the earliest possible date.

I think we do have reason to be encouraged as to the prospects for a District of Columbia College bill this year as was indicated in the story in last night's Evening Star by Shirley Elder entitled "Prospects Brighten for Public College in District." I am going to ask to have that story inserted in the record at this point. (The article referred to follows:)

[From the Evening Star, Mar. 23, 1966]

PROSPECTS BRIGHTEN FOR PUBLIC COLLEGE IN DISTRICT

(By Shirley Elder, Star staff writer)

Prospects for both a junior college and a 4-year liberal arts school here were looking up today as traditional House District Committee opposition appeared to be softening.

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